


when you're young, you just run

by thisismetrying



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Drabble, F/M, Freeform, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28586385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisismetrying/pseuds/thisismetrying
Summary: And so she goes and sees the world. She visits London, and Berlin, and Madrid, and Toronto.Just a short drabble.
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	when you're young, you just run

**Author's Note:**

> Idek, I wrote this in 10 minutes while I'm drunk.
> 
> The title is inspired by Taylor Swift's "This Love" which I highly recommend listening to. 
> 
> I don't own any characters or rights.

She calls Benny after Moscow to thank him.

He responds with a gruff “you’re welcome,” and makes a joke about patriotic duty.

But Benny Watts is not a patriot, and Beth Harmon knows this better than anyone. She knows it from five weeks in his basement apartment and knows it because they have always thought the same way.

“Do you still mean it? Don’t call you again?” she asks. And because she is 20, and infatuated, and thinks he is too (and she has always been fascinated by couples,) she boldly asks, “Are we in love?”

She hears Benny’s sigh through the phone. “Beth, you’re 20 years old. Go out and live and see the world.” He hangs up.

-

And so she goes and sees the world. She visits London, and Berlin, and Madrid, and Toronto.

She plays chess tournaments and invitationals, but she also goes out and dances at clubs, and sees the sights, and meets important people.

She buys tons of pretty dresses and even some new pantsuits that are coming into fashion.

She sleeps with men and women, alternately liking the quickness, the sharpness, of men and liking the gentleness, the softness, of women.

She eats fine food and drinks expensive wine (but she quits beer and hard liquor, eventually).

And she falls in and out of love. Sometimes people break her heart, but more often she breaks theirs. She is not one for attachments.

But still, she lives, and she learns, and she finds out what she likes, what she doesn’t like, what she wants to do, what she doesn’t want to do, what she is willing to do, and what she is not willing to do. In short, she starts to find who she is.

-

And when she is 25, and she is still World Champion, the U.S. Championship is held in New York that year, and she goes just to unveil a new tactic she created.

When she enters the room, which is still a dinky auditorium of some second-rate college, she sees a man in a duster and cowboy hat.

“Why, hello, Benny.”

“Why, hello, Beth.”

And they restart with an opening.

**Author's Note:**

> This is super short and I basically wrote this in 10 minutes because it's been on my mind and while I love Beth x Benny happy ending fics/fics where they get together after Moscow, I do think realistically, I would have liked the show to address the age gap and Beth's lack of life experience/I do think it would be healthy for Beth to have some time to just get to know her own self before any romantic entanglements (even though I absolutely love them together)
> 
> Anyway, yeah, just putting this short af drabble out there


End file.
